Guardian Australia today celebrates its first birthday and looks back on its many editorial and commercial successes over the past year.

Since its launch on 27 May 2013, Guardian Australia has garnered a loyal following by offering a broad range of domestic and international news and hard-hitting investigative journalism, lively debate and commentary, witty sports coverage and engaging culture and features content. It has since become one of the top ten news sites in Australia with 17% of the Australian market, according to figures by Nielsen Online Ratings, and the number three quality newspaper website in Australia. Nielsen’s April 2014 figures saw a record monthly Australian audience of 1.765m. Already in May Guardian Australia has recorded five of its six biggest ever days. The organisation also began the process of opening an office in Melbourne, its third in Australia, creating new editorial and commercial positions, and supporting its expansion just nine months after launch.

Guardian Australia has also enjoyed enormous reader engagement, with over 100,000 likes on its standalone Facebook page, almost 40,000 followers of its @guardianaus Twitter account, and 10,000 monthly comments on articles and content on its site – reader comments from Australia now make up 9% of the Guardian's global total, up from 2% a year ago.

Additional highlights include Guardian Australia’s innovative approach to the election and the Federal Budget, featuring live blogs, news, analysis, cartoon, annotated speeches, graphs, charts and video; the 'total coverage' approach to arts festivals in Adelaide, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Hobart; the madly popular and very funny Ashes live blogs, featuring alternating Australian and English bloggers; and the commissioning of a large number of Indigenous writers, both individually and through collaboration with the @IndigenousX Twitter account. The global nature of the Guardian means that live coverage is 24/7 for the first time, for example during the search for the MH370 plane.

“We have surpassed all expectations in our launch year and loved every moment,' said Katharine Viner, Guardian Australia's editor-in-chief. “We've broken many stories, had a massive impact, demonstrated a serious commitment to public interest journalism, built a deeply engaged community and had a lot of fun. Our journalists have flourished. It has been an exciting time and the results vindicate the team's incredibly hard work. As I head to New York to edit Guardian US, I can say this with certainty: Guardian journalism in Australia has a bright future."

The organisation’s editorial success has also been strongly supported by its commercial performance. Guardian Australia has far exceeded its revenue and traffic growth figures year-on-year against forecasts.

Part of its commercial success can be attributed to the innovative ways Guardian Australia engages with brands. For example, NRMA Insurance entered into a brand partnership with Guardian Australia to launch Australia in numbers, a monthly series of infographics and interactives, sometimes drawing on NRMA Insurance’s historical data that directly address everyday Australian issues. The five monthly interactives, part of Guardian International’s Datablog, have all featured in the top 30 Guardian Australia data articles over the past year.

“It's been an incredible first year for Guardian Australia. In just 12 months the editorial team have done a brilliant job engaging a local audience that was crying out for this kind of journalism. And commercially, we are formulating strong, creative and innovative partnerships with brands, agencies and businesses trying to communicate with that hard to reach audience. We have also benefited from the massive economies of scale that come from being part of a global media organisation; having access to cutting edge digital products, international content and commercial relationships from around the globe. All of that combined has contributed to our tremendous success and we can't wait to get cracking on our second year" said Guardian Australia managing director, Ian McClelland.

Guardian Australia’s first birthday sees Katharine Viner relocating to New York to assume the role of editor-in-chief of Guardian US, remaining a deputy editor of Guardian News & Media. Emily Wilson, former UK network editor of theguardian.com, will take her place as the editor of Guardian Australia.

With a global digital audience of 100m monthly unique browsers, the Guardian is the third largest English language newspaper website in the world. Guardian Australia offers Australian audiences high-quality, independent and innovative local journalism, publishing some of the best writers in Australia alongside the best of the Guardian's global journalism.

Globally, the Guardian this year picked up the Pulitzer Prize for public service for its reporting on NSA surveillance and was awarded website of the Year at the British Press Awards.

About Guardian News & Media

Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com, the third largest English-speaking newspaper website in the world (comScore, February 2014). Since launching its US and Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from outside of the UK now represents around two-thirds of the Guardian's total digital audience.

In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week, first published in 1821, and the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.

The Guardian is most recently renowned for its Pulitzer Prize-winning revelations based on the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2014, the Guardian was named newspaper and website of the year at the Society of Editors UK Press Awards.

The Guardian is also known for its globally acclaimed investigation into phone hacking, the launch of its ground-breaking digital-first strategy in 2011 and its trailblazing partnership with WikiLeaks in 2010.

The Scott Trust Ltd

The ultimate owner of the Guardian is The Scott Trust, which was originally created as a trust in 1936 to safeguard the title's journalistic freedom. In 2008 it was replaced by a limited company with the same core purpose of the original trust: to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity, while its subsidiary aims are to champion its principles and to promote freedom of the press in the UK and elsewhere. Other than to cover expense, The Scott Trust takes no dividend from the group's businesses, whose profits are instead reinvested to sustain journalism that is free from commercial or political interference.